Dive Brief:

• Continuing the trend of the last several decades, this year’s graduates have more debt than their predecessors.
• The Wall Street Journal reports on a new study from college financial planning company Edvisors, which shows the average borrower in the Class of 2015 will be responsible for paying back $35,000 and 17% of these grads have parents who took out $30,687 on their behalf, on average.
• Student loan debt has increased by more than 10 times since 1994, according to the article, and if current trends continue, the Class of 2016 will soon take over as the most indebted class ever.

Dive Insight:

The national political spotlight has been turned on student loan debt for the last couple years, since the collective debt topped $1 trillion and bypassed other forms of borrowing, such as credit cards. This year, Democrats are pushing with increasing vigor for debt-free college options, spurred in part by the rise of for-profit colleges and the high default rates of those graduates. State schools, once the affordable option, have raised tuition significantly in recent years, too. But earnings projections still show at least a reasonable amount of student loan debt is certainly good debt.